Terry Childs Found Guilty In SF Computer Tampering Trial
ktvu.comActually, a reasonable article. Particularly the followup with a juror who was a Network Engineer (Chilton). I like the following statement:
"Chilton, however, said Childs' supervisors at the Department of Technology were also to blame. He said they "did everything wrong that they possibly could," citing "ineffective management and no formalized policies and procedures" for dealing with employees in such situations."
As one who manages a fairly large team of Network Engineers, I find it hard to believe how painfully absent the city's management must have been to let things go as far as they did. Clearly the city wasn't using two-factor authentication, vaulted enable passwords, or nightly backed up configs (Rancid or role your own) - all of which are pretty bog standard network-manager checklists.
Terry Childs sounds mentally ill. Was that raised in the trial?
He seems like the typical self aggrandizing possessive network engineer type to me. If we classify that as a mental illness they'll probably have to shut down the Internet. From what I've seen in the industry it's not uncommon for people in that position with little supervision or support to run amok. Network engineers need to be treated like tolerable dictators sometimes. If someone lets them get out of control bad things will happen. Not defending his actions at all but we could examine any profession and find behaviors that look a lot like mental illness.
What a mentally ill conclusion to jump to. If this opinion is founded on news and blogs, its not founded on very much at all.
I can't quite grasp the message that you're trying to send here. Is this supposed to be a jab at 'the media?' Or is this supposed to be some sort of pro-mental-health message?
Doesn't it seem mean-spirited for a well known individual to jump to a conclusion in a public forum that a person suffers from mental illness due to their behavior, all descriptions of which likely only comes from blogs and newspapers?
And no, this is not a jab at the media. Not sure if you've ever been the subject of media coverage, but I can tell you from personal experience that it's enlightening to discover how little of reality is represented in the news. It's just a fact of life.
Doesn't it seem mean-spirited for a well known individual to jump to a conclusion in a public forum that a person suffers from mental illness due to their behavior, all descriptions of which likely only comes from blogs and newspapers?
Without knowing the person in question, what else is there to go off of beyond news and blogs? Seems to me he was stating his opinion based off those sources and I came to the same conclusion.
And that's the point.
The limited information mostly points to a person under extreme duress and clearly offended by his management. How is it not a personal attack to conjecture in public about mental illness? Because it's apparently unintended as a personal attack? Hmmm, I'll just swing this club around in a crowded room, hope I don't accidentally hit someone.
In these circumstances questioning mental stability essentially questions a persons entire ability to reason and reasonably rationalize.
Is it that under duress and in a perfect storm of personality conflict, someone must be mentally ill to break down or behave in a way that appears irrational? I guess it could be, and damn, if someone doesn't agree with me, that's a pretty good sign too ;-)